


An Exchange of Gifts

by jenna_thorn



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 18:29:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A gift is neither a debt nor an obligation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Exchange of Gifts

**An Exchange of Gifts**

Pirates were common in Port Royal. There were only so many ports of size in the area, only so much land on the map, despite recent evidence to the existence of uncharted bits of it. Pirates slipped ashore at night, or haggled openly in the market, or raised mugs of watered rum in dingy pubs, looking to create more pirates, the level of secrecy dependent on the price on each one's head.

Pirates were common enough. This one was not.

The motley band of seafarers, their sea-stained linen as much a uniform as His Majesty's wool, shuffled toward the fort in a cloud of sweat and resentment. They were escorted by the best of the British marines, their leader's face as red as his jacket. He manhandled several of the prisoners, then grabbed one boyish shoulder and twisted it sharply up. He shouted at the guard, "You fool! This is a strumpet, no pirate."  
She glared at the marine, and Gillette himself spoke her doom. "No, Major, she is as bold a pirate as ever burned a merchant vessel. Look to her hands, not her hair. She's held a sword."  
"Your women are too weak to do the same," Anamaria spat.  
"We cherish our women," the marine snarled back.  
"I cherish my freedom."  
"Take them away." The major shoved her roughly back into the cluster of prisoners.  
Gillette had no choice but to watch, as bound by his rank as she was by the chains that dragged at her skin.

An officer of the king did not fetch or carry. He could no more bring her food, or even water, than he could present her with the Crown jewels, but mocking? He was allowed to mock, to taunt. So he did. The guards, never vigilant, turned away to let the officer have his fun. She seemed smaller, somehow, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the cell, her back to the bars.

He sank to his heels, wary of actually touching either bars or floor. "Fancy meeting you here."  
"Where else would I be?" she spoke as quietly, as wary of the guards as her fellows.  
"The Black Pearl, last I heard."  
"Sparrow may be a madman, but his quartermaster is not. Empty stomachs aren't filled by words."  
"So you are here," he waved generally at the rough hewn walls, "for salt pork and portable soup?"  
"Aye, though the service here…. I've had better at places that didn't have a roof."  
"I understand the kitchen is better than their cellar."  
"Perhaps," Anamaria said. "But I've yet to see it."  
"I could, perhaps, bring…" he trailed off. "No, I suppose I really couldn't."  
"Well, if we aren't eating, I'd rather not eat something other than ship's biscuit and water."  
"We could not have tea," he said. It took him a moment to recognize that her shaking was suppressed laughter.  
"With those little cakes with raisins?" she whispered.  
"Certainly. And scones with butter. Pineapple jelly, of course with mint. How do you take your tea?"  
"With rum."  
"Oh," that hadn't actually occurred to him. "Well, I suppose we could…er…not have sherry."  
"I don't think I want to die with sherry on my tongue."  
He paused, "Perhaps there's something I can do."  
"You lie poorly. I would like to dice with you."  
"I don't play dice. Cards, perhaps?"  
"I don't play cards. Not sea-worthy, little painted slips of paper. Blow away in a breeze. More fit for tearooms and salons. Places with walls." She curled her hand around the bar.  
He refrained from touching her. "I would free you."  
"I think perhaps that I would let you," she answered. The sorrow in her voice did not surprise him, but the resignation did. She expected nothing from him. Only later did he realize she was the only one who didn't.

Pirates swung at dawn, always, and two hours before, he pulled at her sleeve. She came awake immediately and silently, and he raised one finger to his lips. Together they crept past the sleeping inmates, past the dogs who slept with his muzzle on the ring of keys and a guard with his chin on his weapon, past the fortress walls. He slowed at the edge of town and frowned at the patches on her blouse before shaking off his jacket.  
She stepped away quickly. "I've no interest in being your whore."  
"You've no…what?"  
She pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes at him.  
He stepped forward and draped his second best coat over her thin shirt. "I don't want to bed you, Anamaria. I want to play chess with you."  
She rubbed her wrists automatically. The shadowed moon was too dim; he could not tell whether the marks on her sleeves were rust or blood.  
"Chess?" she asked.  
"One can only drink so much tea…or rum, and I have on good authority that I'm not temperamentally suited for dice."  
Anamaria smiled at that, and ducked her head to hide it, though she did slip her arms into the sleeves of his jacket.  
She took several steps away, then spun to face him, suddenly fierce. "I owe you nothing."  
"Consider it a gift."

With the rising of the sun and that morning's hanging, Jack Sparrow's legend grew. The townspeople whispered of powers of escape so strong that they extended like an outstretched wing over his crew. Gillette was unpunished, in fact, unsuspected. An officer of the navy would never free a pirate.  
\---:::---

 

Jack was mad, everyone knew that; Gibbs even informed strangers of the fact with a certain amount of pride, but this insanity would cost them all their lives. No one outran the typhoon, not even Captain Jack Sparrow. He would die; his precious Pearl would die; they and the Dauntless in pursuit would all drown in the tempest. Jack knew the tides, and the Commodore had shown them that he knew the sea, but she knew the rigging better than any man alive and she felt the mast give before the thunder of its breaking cracked over the deck, before the sail swept her into the air. She reached for the rail, stretching herself, praying to feel the splintered wood of the railing under her hands.

She failed.

The water hit her in parts, the bitter sting of the spray, the force of the wave, the chill of the deep pulling at her clothes, her hair, flooding her eyes and nose with the ghosts of the men she'd had a hand in drowning. She fought the sea, scrambled to claw her fingers into the ropes knotted around the spar, hauled her head out of the water and saw the Navy boat crack and founder, the cannons still firing and pushing themselves that much more quickly into the deep. The sharks would dine well. She had only to make sure she wasn't part of the feast. She swung one leg over the shattered spar and devoted herself to staying alive.

The dog watch brought calm and a gentle swell and dawn brought land, rocky and deserted and already dotted with bits of ship, some brightly navy painted, some sun-bleached, old bones of old wrecks. She crawled through the surf, too exhausted and salt-sick to stand, across the beach, past the fish bones and small shells that marked high tide, curled around a rock, and slept.

Voices woke her before the sun could crest her shelter, the low moan of a man about to die, shouts of scavengers, both the cry of the gull rooting for meat and the hoarse shouting of men, searching the dead.

The scavengers were dispatching navy men with calm efficiency and without knowing where she was, she knew enough. No man's land, far from town or crown, men too rough for any contract, apprentice or sea. But here, so far from Tortuga, or more exactly Port Royal, was a familiar profile, though last seen in the half light before sunrise above a pirate's cove. A double line of gouged sand showed where he'd dragged another sailor from the surf before collapsing and he still had one arm slung under his fellow's body. A valiant effort and one worthy of a brother. A shame that the crabs were starting in on the fellow's feet. A stout man with a rough carved wooden leg pulled the two Navy men apart, rolled Gilette over with the point of his cutlass, then laid the tip under his chin.  
"Hold!"  
Pegleg spun in surprise.  
Quite honestly, she was a little surprised herself. She'd been unseen and had both an escape route and no reason to speak. But it was done now, and she'd spent enough time on Sparrow's boat to know when to bluff. "He's one of mine." She stepped forth with more surety than she felt. They'd attracted the others, now. The scavenger ran a finger down the bright gold trim and rubbed his fingers wordlessly. Anamaria continued, "He was captured, though I'll wager the uniform was his escape plan. He's a clever one."  
Pegleg looked at Gillette with some curiosity, at her with less. Pegleg drew his pistol and aimed it carefully at her. "Why should I believe you?" he asked.  
"Why shouldn't you? I've no claim on that," she waved down the beach where others were gathering around the bundles of wet red wool, "only for my crewman."  
"I'll be taking the uniform," he challenged.  
She shrugged. "I've no use for it."  
He laughed rudely and she sneered, both at him and at the underfed gangly youth who joined him. She stood over them, impassive by long years of training, and watched as they rolled Gillette roughly in the sand and left him, barefoot in his shirt and trousers, at her feet. She knew she didn't have the strength to get up again if she sat, so she grabbed his wrists roughly and dragged him away from the waves. The rough shells couldn't do any more damage to his back than had already been done by storm tossed wood and sea water.

She'd had a fire going, sputtery and reeking of fish and resin, but enough to keep the wet air from chilling them, when he came to with a hacking cough that presaged croup in the winter to come.

"What?"  
"Hurricane."  
"Where are…?"  
"Possibly as far as Tripoli, though if so we made damn good time running before the storm." She looked over the thin limp grass that scrabbled to grow through the sand, at the stripped bodies left on the beach, at a gull walking the tide line.  
"Who?"  
"None, to my knowledge," her stern face dared him to say otherwise, though she still did not look at him.

He curled in on himself, not weeping, simply breathing. The shadows moved around them before he tried to speak again. "Is there water?"  
"Not here. We'll have to forage, and for that we'll have to move."  
"Thank you."  
She frowned, "for what?"  
"I dare say it's apparent that you saved my life."  
Her smile was slow, but all the more honest for it. "Consider it a gift."

 

**An Exchange of Names**

_My Dearest sister, my only sister,_ Gillette smiled to himself. Twenty years on this earth with Jane and this was the last time he would be able to make that joke. He rubbed at the peeling burn across his wrist and continued writing. _Should aught happen while I am at sea, remember that it is my will that my pension should go to you, for Jeremy. I've no one here in Port Royal to woo or be mourned by._ He regretted that as soon as he wrote it, but the foolscap would bear no rubbing. It would have to stay. _I leave tomorrow on an early tide to chase pirates under Commodore Norrington. All is well, or as well as all can be, so far from home and family._

You have my filial devotion, but also all my affection,  
Your brother

He took rather more care with his signature than usual, knowing that this would be the last time he used it, that this letter was his will, once matched with his formal papers at the fort. He lay his hand flat on the scarred table; he could still feel the shaking, but it would not do to show it, not here amid ruffians and cutthroats, a world away from civilization. It had seemed so simple on the beach, to walk away, begin anew, leave Mr. Gillette in the wreckage and start under a new name, away from the downward dismissive glances of the salon, away from the petty bickering of the officer's mess. He straightened slowly, mindful of the ache at his ribs, and wary of the sharp pain that swift movement caused. A flutter of white sleeve and black hair caught his eye. Ah yes, Anamaria. She stepped close behind him to peer over his shoulder, careful as ever not to touch him, but he could feel her warmth even through his shirt. Though it may have been the sunburn he felt, instead.  
"Your hand is neater than mine," she said.  
"I had use of my brother's tutor."  
"Better than charcoal and brick, it seems." She took the letter and folded it with care. "What else can you do?"  
"Sums, more than adequately."  
"A sextant?"  
"Of course, as any midshipman would by the time he's finished his first voyage." His tone was harsh and her eyes hardened.  
"We know you can polish brass. What usable skills have you?"  
Her tone stung his waterlogged pride and he stood to face her, conscious of his threadbare coat. "I am an officer of His Majesty's navy."  
"Just polishing brass, then."  
"And freeing prisoners," he reminded her.  
"Polishing brass, breaking regulations, " she answered.  
"Shall we add 'not drowning' to the list?"  
"Best to make it complete." He was relieved to see her eyes turn up at the corners. Months of watching James Norrington's dry reserve would serve him well in new found company.

The innkeeper was willing enough to take his letter, but wanted coin. He had nothing but sand and his life. Anamaria pulled the letter from his hand and walked away, reappearing with a bowl of stew and two spoons. He sat heavily and prodded the gray meat before joining her. With his stomach eased, if not sated, he spread his fingers on the table, hoping for some solidity. Even the ground seemed to move under his feet, following rules he didn't understand. "I quite feel like I'm floating."  
"We'll be aboard soon enough."  
He didn't bother to correct her. It wasn't that he wanted to be on a ship; he simply wanted something to do, a purpose. The storm was recent enough that the simple fact of his existence still thrilled him, but already he'd grown weary of living from meal to meal, with no thought to tomorrow or the next year. "Have you found us a berth, then?"  
"Able seaman, mostly sober."  
"Mostly sober?"  
"Higher pay."  
"I don't suppose my previous experience will help."  
"Too many men here have served in a Navy of some sort."  
"Ah, I rather meant the rank. Should I keep mum?"  
"Not at all, eventually, they'll forgive you for being his majesty's man."  
"Oh, really?" He found that a pleasant surprise, after so many unpleasant ones.  
"Soon after they forgive me for being a woman."  
"Oh. Oh, well, then."  
"Do your job and do it cleanly. It won't buy the advantages that being born right does, but…" She shrugged and for the life of him, he couldn't think of a way to end her sentence, either.

\---:::---

She signed the Articles before him, a careful slanted script under the line of marks already in place. He signed his name slowly, obviously fumbling over the unfamiliar connection of letters. He'd learn. Or he wouldn't. It was no matter to her. She'd done more than anyone could ask for him, and yet … Well, that was the odd bit, really. He hadn't asked at all. For anything. And he didn't, not even after weeks for work, though his hands bled from the holystones until she showed him how to avoid the edges, though she'd caught him darning his cuff into a sail. He was as clumsy with the ropes as he was deft with numbers, and she sighed with relief when the purser and quartermaster both noticed him and commandeered his skills for their own use. At some point, though, she'd have to tell him to stop being so damn cheerful in the morning, for his own safety.

The sea was lit from below. Soon the sun would be blinding off the water, but for bare moments each day, the ocean was lantern-lit. She stood against the rail, idly playing with a belaying pin, waiting for him to greet her as he always did.  
"And a bright good morning to you," Gillette said, skirting the scowling bosun to join her. He didn't look at the sky.  
"So what do you miss about being an officer?" she asked.  
He blinked twice; every fleeting thought apparent. She could almost see images in his eyes as he considered answers, then set them aside. She wondered which of those pauses was his commission, or a woman, or his home, or his hat. He scratched the peeling skin at the end of his nose before answering, "I suppose I miss the mess."  
She couldn't hold in a bark of a laugh, "The food? You are a pirate. Always hungry."  
He wiped his hands on his trousers and said, "I, for your information, am a Merchant mariner. "  
She poked him in the chest with the pin in time with her words. "You are a pi-rate."  
His face shuttered, as though for a wind, and before her stood an officer of Port Royale. "Apparently, we've not met, madam, for I am a merchant mariner, and no pirate at all." He turned his back and busied himself elsewhere. She chose not to follow. She could read tomorrow's winds in the snap of the sheet, but had no weather gauge for a shorn Navy man in second hand shoes and a corpse's breeches.

He shed his officer's stance within the hour, but she'd not seen his eyes since dawn and until she realized that, she'd not noticed how often he smiled at her, usually as they passed, each laden and bound elsewhere. She had no patience with lollygaggers, had no interest in idle chat, but he smiled and he smiled at her often. She watched him pulling in a secondary net and though outwardly as still as ever, she rocked inwardly as though buffeted by waves. She realized that she had grown used to him, she'd grown fond of him, and she missed him. He was within sight, but she missed him. That thought hit like a seventh wave, stronger than the others and it overwhelmed her as a true seventh wave curls over a dock.

The sun fell into a grey-green sea and Anamaria stood alone at the rail. A good day's time, a goodly distance traveled over fish and under gull, and as she stood coiling hawsers, she considered her routes. Sharing food was the usual peace offering, but she'd not volunteer even the barest hint of service, not to no man. He hadn't acclimated to the ship's grog yet and she had nothing to make him light up when he saw her, knew of no way to make him smile. She hadn't Jack's quick tongue or the Swann girl's skin and lost in thought, soothed by the rough hemp flowing over her hands, she started when Gillette surprised her with a touch of worn linen against her arm. "I wanted to show you something," he said. She didn't speak; she had no words to ask him what she wanted to know, to tell him what she wanted from him.

The rolled fabric in his hand was once a sleeve, but had been split from the elbow, ripped up the back and laid open in a rough square. It was marked out in lopsided pitch stained squares. He clattered a bag of something at her, then tipped a wooden chip out of it and into his hand. The chip bore the rough outline of a horse, or perhaps a cow. He was no artist. She looked into his smiling eyes with some confusion.  
"I play cards; you dice. I thought maybe together, we could play chess."  
"You'll have to teach me," she said.  
"I owe you for teaching me that splicing trick."  
"No owing. You owe me nothing; I owe you nothing." She took the tile from his hand and glanced again at the rough scratched drawing. A cow. Perhaps a dog. "Consider it a gift."  
"Ah, yes, we do seem to do better with gifts, don't we?"

She ducked her head in silent agreement and he knelt to lay the mutilated sleeve on the deck, tugging at it in a doomed attempt to straighten the edges. He spilled the pieces into the middle and moved them about with surety. She dropped to one knee herself to touch a piece with a crown and turn over one that had fallen face down, also with a crown but with a rose over it. She handed it to him, but rather than set it into place on the board, he curled her fingers into his own and raised the back of her hand to his lips. The scratch of his chapped lips faded into the warmth of his kiss and they swayed for a moment, rocking with the snap of the sail and unnaturally silent, the screaming of the gulls muffled by her heartbeat. She turned her hand in his, dropping the chip to the deck, grasped his wrist, and pressed a kiss of her own into the palm of his hand, torn and calloused, solid and him. His eyes widened comically as she pulled his hand to her cheek and pressed it there. He leaned forward, at the edge of his balance, as though he dared not touch her. Was she a wild animal, that he should be so wary? To him, no doubt she was. She grinned wolfishly as she planted her knee in the board, scattering the pieces, and she kissed him.

**Author's Note:**

> written for Tiggothy for the Pirates Secret Santa exchange of 2006.


End file.
